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Four Seasons Politics

Opponents to demonstrate against training center ahead of sheriff's forum

Hendersonville Four Seasons Politics

Q&A: What's ahead in the water war?

The stage is set for an epic battle in the state Legislature between the city of Hendersonville and the Henderson County Board of Commissioners. Commissioners voted 3-1 last week to endorse a proposed bill that would put the Hendersonville city water system under the control of the North Carolina Utilities Commission. The vote came after commissioners devoted an hour and a half to a proposal by Commissioner Bill Lapsley to force the city to agree to a countywide authority and, barring that, subject the water system to control of the regulatory agency that controls rates for electric utilities, water systems and railroads across the state.Tommy Thompson voted no, saying he wanted more time to study the question. Voting yes were Lapsley, Grady Hawkins and Chairman Michael Edney.Messer said he had to leave for an eye doctor appointment. He said he would have voted with Thompson against the motion in favor of studying the issue more closely.“I did get a call from Sen. Edwards yesterday,” he said Tuesday. “He asked me the same question. I just think we need to set down with the city. We got the Hendersonville High School issue pending anyway. If there’s a difference, we need to set down and try to get through this because we’ve always been good partners with the city. From what I understand (from Edwards) we’re not pushed for time on him and Chuck McGrady presenting a bill.“But I would have voted with Tommy,” he said. “There’s a lot of valuable information we received. I just thought personally we should have received it a day or two ahead of time, to make notes and ask questions, other than make a resolution on the spur of the moment. That’s what I think it was. If we can resolve it without doing this, that’s what I would like to see happen.”Based on Lapsley’s presentation on the city water system, commissioners’ comments and interviews by the Hendersonville Lightning with city and county officials, here is what we know about the issues, how we got here and where we could be headed. How is the Hendersonville city water different from other municipal systems? The main difference is in the makeup of the customer base. Hendersonville’s system has 27,400 accounts serving 60,000 people, a little more than half the total population. Seventy-five percent of them live outside the city. Of 296 municipal water systems, just 10 have more than 50 percent of customers outside their city limits. Hendersonville has the second highest percentage in the state. (The town of Linden, near Fayetteville, has 89 percent of its base outside the town limits but only 679 total customers.) Hendersonville’s rate for outside users is 50 percent higher than the inside city rate. Is this a problem? Here you get to the heart of the dispute. Lapsley and the commissioners and state Rep. Chuck McGrady say yes.“This imbalance of the customer base has created a situation where the governing body is not answerable to the vast majority of the system’s customers,” Lapsley says. “There is no means for the customers located outside of the corporate limits to hold the governing body accountable for its actions.”“About 70 percent of the people receiving water from the City are not city residents,” McGrady says. “Therefore, they don’t really have any representation if they have problems with the water system. I’m aware of the issue, and aware of both the city’s and county’s viewpoints.” McGrady is considering a bill that would place all municipal systems with more than 40 percent of their customer base outside city boundaries under the Utilities Commission authority. What would Utilities Commission regulation do? Under the law the state body provides oversight and accountability in rates and fees, extension policies, customer service standards. Specifically, Lapsley wants the change in state law to result in “a thorough review” of the city’s “rates and fees to make them uniform for all customers” and would also “make available to all customers a means for holding the system’s owner/governing board accountable for their actions.”City officials say the state oversight is unnecessary and potentially would cripple the city’s ability to be agile in responding to requests for emergency lines, as it did when it ran water lines to a Dana neighborhood with contaminated wells, and for industry, as it did when it extended water service for Tri-Hishtil, a plant grafting company, and Bold Rock Hard Cider, in Mills River.City Manager John Connet posed a scenario where a factory pledging good jobs was looking at Henderson County and a competitor, Catawba County.“The question is, you’ve got an industry, and they ask you, ‘You’ve got the capacity, can you expand the plant?’ In Hendersonville’s case, we’d say, yes, we can expand the plant but it’ll have to be approved by the utilities commission and if you’re in Catawba County they’ll say, ‘Oh, we can approve that whenever we get permission of the city council.’ So the question is, what risk is it going to be to lose that industry? That would be my concern. Can we move as quickly as we need to from an economic development standpoint.”Even with a single user, the city is responsive to need, inside or out.“That happens every day,” he said. “We answer a thousand calls a week. We never ask, Are you inside the city or outside the city? We treat every customer the same way regardless of where they are. We had a customer (in Flat Rock) whose well was failing this week on Old Distillery Road off of Little River Road. She called. We said, ‘Come on in, we’ll talk about it,’ and we’re finding a way to run a short water line extension as soon as possible. We’re going to find a way to get her water. That’s just one example this week. We deal with people every day and never does it ever come up whether you’re in the city or out.” Why does the city charge higher rates outside the city? Several reasons, city officials say. Over more than a hundred years, Hendersonville taxpayers have to some extent invested in the water system beyond what water revenue has generated. While legislators say cities use water revenue to subsidize general fund operations, Hendersonville officials say the opposite is true. While the city’s accountants do apportion an amount of employees’ work to the utilities and general operations, the general fund actually helps pay for the utility side, according to Connet.“Taxpayers are paying a portion of that cost that’s not on the rate,” he said. “My salary is split 50-50. … We’ve estimated that’s about $2 million that is not on the rate side of the house that the citizens of Hendersonville are paying in their tax bill” to support the utilities operation.Another reason is that it costs more per customer to pump water, maintain lines and chase leaks through more sparsely populated areas.“The financial model of a utility system is the higher density you have, the more economical it is because you get more customers per linear foot of line,” Connet says. “Obviously, if you have long distances of line where you don’t have customers, or you have to pump it farther, then yes, there’s a greater cost.” How much would county ratepayers save and how much more would city customers pay if the Utilities Commission ordered uniform rates? That can be a little tricky because rates are based on consumption. The city has calculated that the county users would see a 20 percent cut and city dwellers would see a 25 percent increase. The rate now for a 5,000-gallon/month household is $19.79 inside and $30.17 outside — 52.5 percent more. Does the city of Hendersonville and neighboring towns coordinate plans on water and sewer extensions? Again, another eye-of-the-beholder scenario.“They are afraid to bring up water operations issues for fear of hurting their relationship with the city of Hendersonville and any probable repercussions,” Lapsley said.Connet says he’s never heard that the towns of Laurel Park, Fletcher, Flat Rock and Mills River are afraid to talk to the city.Since he came on board in May 2013, Connet has visited every town council, updated members on upcoming improvements and extensions “and point blank asked them, ‘Do you have concerns, problems or issues that you want us to take back to address?’ I know we went to the county commission at least twice.”He also points to a stakeholders’ report the city conducted that included interviews with elected officials from Henderson County and all its towns.“There was no city staff and no city council in any of the interviews,” he said. Fountainworks consultant “Warren Miller went and interviewed them on their own.”Laurel Park Town Council members said last week their town has a positive partnership with Hendersonville since 1898.“I think everybody agrees we have an excellent relationship with Hendersonville,” Councilman Paul Hansen said. “I don’t see a reason to change it at this time. I understand the politics of it but from a Hendersonville-Laurel Park perspective I’m not in favor of it. I don’t think it’s a good idea having people 400 miles away determining our future.”Mayor Carey O’Cain added: “The city of Hendersonville and the town of Laurel Park have had a peaceful relationship for a long long time with regards to the water department.” Does Hendersonville coordinate waterline extensions with Henderson County? Again, in dispute. Lapsley says the city should have consulted with the county before it bought a private water plant in Etowah. Connet said he did.“I asked the county manager on two occasions, ‘Do I need to get permission for us to buy Etowah?’ ‘Nope. We’re fine. We don’t want it, you can have it.’ And Bill is beating us up over that. He’s just using that against it.”Commissioner Grady Hawkins says that a long-range master plan for water should include county input, or even control, because water drives land use. City officials say they’ve brought in all stakeholders in planning, including county officials and the Partnership for Economic Development.“We’ve included county representatives and county staff on our planning committees,” Mayor Barbara Volk said. “We met with members of a stakeholders group. I’m not sure how much more they’re willing to give other than they want to be part of an authority. We were asked (in the Jan. 23 meeting) to look at the difference between inside and outside rates and we were told they want an answer right now and we said we would look at it as part of our budget process.” That’s part of the broader rate study, she said. “That’s why we couldn’t give them an answer that day.” Is a compromise possible? It could be, if the two sides were to cool off. Councilman Jeff Miller admits to being furious — and making no effort to hide it — when Lapsley raised the threat of state control of Hendersonville water during a meeting on Jan. 23. The meeting included Connet, Miller, Mayor Barbara Volk, County Manager Steve Wyatt, Lapsley and Board of Commissioners Chair Michael Edney. Lapsley “starts immediately reading off a list of things that he thought we in the city of Hendersonville weren’t doing properly,” Miller said. “He said, ‘If you won’t form a water authority with the county, we have already talked to Chuck Edwards and Chuck McGrady and we’ll request that the city be put under the oversight of the public Utilities Commission.’ Basically, they were trying to use a very heavy handed method.”Miller and Volk refused to negotiate with the sword of state control over their heads.“My recollection is that at that meeting we said we would not do anything under the threat of legislative action,” Connet said. “We were taken aback.”Connet says the council has already committed to looking closely at the rate differential.“If that’s the big issue, as part of the rate study, we are going to look at what it would take to go to uniform rates and how we could do it over a reasonable period of time,” he said. “When we raised the inside rates last year more than we did the outside rates, we got some pushback from the minority community, particularly low-income, about how this is regressive. Instead of doing it in one fell swoop, we would ask can we figure out a plan to do it over a period of time, being conscious of our lower income residents.“That is absolutely a discussion the city council is willing to have and will have,” he added. “I think it’s a conversation individual members are starting to have among themselves. By no means has there been a door closed within a reasonable period of time of getting closer to uniform rates.”Lapsley also talks as if the door is still open for talks, though he leans toward a countywide water authority.“If this goes through does that forever say permanently the city and the county can’t get together? No,” he said. “That option, does that come off the table because of this? No. That’ll always be there. The question is whether the city of Hendersonville wants to entertain it.” Will this fight result in a lawsuit? That’s very possible. The city of Asheville sued when the Legislature passed a bill in 2015 that put its water system under a regional water authority. The city won in a state Supreme Court ruling, which could have some relevance to the city case. Asheville would be dragged into the Henderson County-Hendersonville fight if McGrady files a bill that applies to city water systems with more than 40 percent of their base outside the city limits. (Asheville has always been McGrady’s primary target anyway.) The 40 percent cutoff would double the number of affected cities, from 11 to 22.On Friday afternoon, the phone rang in Connet’s office. He glanced at the caller ID.“The town of Clyde is calling me,” he said. “They’re on this list. I talked to the town of Valdese yesterday.”Other cities could rise up to oppose what they regard as a state encroachment on their sovereignty. “We have made the League of Municipalities aware,” Connet said.     Read Story »

Henderson County Four Seasons Politics

Trump says he's 'coming after' Meadows over health care vote

U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows is at the center of the political fight over the future of health care as the conservative group he leads — the House Freedom Caucus — makes demands on a Obamacare repeal bill that House leaders are reluctant to grant.   Read Story »

Henderson County Four Seasons Politics

McDonald urges supporters to attend training center Q&A

Peppered by questions from citizens about the cost and need for a $20 million law enforcement training center, Sheriff Charlie McDonald is going on offense. The sheriff will speak next week about the training deputies must undergo to proficiently provide the high quality of service Henderson County residents have come to expect and explain why he believes the new training center is needed. The meeting is at 6 p.m. Monday, March 27, in the Kaplan Auditorium of the public library in Hendersonville. In an email blast, McDonald reminding supporters of a campaign event, the Bluegrass & BBQ, at 5 p.m. Saturday at Apple Valley Middle School, and added that he would like supporters to show up when he defends the law enforcement training center on Monday night. "Also, we would love to have some of Sheriff McDonald's supporters present at his Law Enforcement Training Informational Meeting," the campaign email said. “As your Sheriff, I would like answer questions posed by the citizens of Henderson County about why this training center is needed and how our citizens and law enforcement stand to benefit,” McDonald said in the announcement about the library Q&A. “The proposed facility is not just a shooting range, but a modern facility which allows deputies and police to train effectively in the highest liability aspects of modern law enforcement including all levels of use-of-force, defensive countermeasures and crisis de-escalation skills.” Current training needs and features provided by the proposed Law Enforcement Training Center, including the backup communications capability and Blue Ridge Community College Basic Law Enforcement Training needs, will be outlined. This presentation is free and open to the public and will be followed by a Q&A.   Read Story »

Hendersonville Four Seasons Politics

Local NAACP members taking concerns to Raleigh

Frustrated by the actions of elected leaders, members of the NAACP from Henderson and three other mountain counties will travel to Raleigh Tuesday to express their views on pending and past legislation they say hurts minorities and the poor.   Read Story »

Hendersonville Four Seasons Politics

COMMISSIONERS ENDORSE STATE CONTROL OF CITY WATER SYSTEM

The stage is set for an epic battle in the state Legislature between the city of Hendersonville and the Henderson County Board of Commissioners.   Read Story »

Hendersonville Four Seasons Politics

Here's the city's complete response on water system

City of HendersonvilleOfficial Response to Proposed Henderson County Board of Commissioners Actions Effecting Hendersonville Water and Sewer It has come to the attention of the City of Hendersonville that at their regular meeting on Wednesday, March 15, 2017, the Henderson County Board of Commissioners will consider a resolution requesting the City to turn over its utility to a regional authority or become a regulated utility under the oversight of the North Carolina Public Utilities Commission. Furthermore, it is the City’s understanding that this initiative directly stems from Commissioner Bill Lapsley’s belief that the public interest is not protected under the City’s ownership of the utility system.Commissioner Lapsley has recently met with Henderson County municipalities and other political leaders to discuss his proposal. During these meetings he has discussed his concerns regarding the following topics:• Long Range Planning• Inside /Outside Rate Differentials• Water and Sewer Expansion Policies• 2000 Mud Creek Settlement Agreement• Financial Management• Customer Service/DisenfranchisementThe City of Hendersonville contends that Commissioner Lapsley’s opinions are misconstrued, taken out of context or simply inaccurate. The City seeks to provide data and facts refuting each of the concerns listed above, and the following are examples of proactive initiatives or improvements made by Hendersonville Water and Sewer over the last four years:Long Range PlanningStakeholder Meetings and Technical Advisory CommitteeIn 2015 the Hendersonville City Council directed staff to interview City water and sewer system stakeholders to determine what we are doing well and where improvements can be made. A third party consultant, Warren Miller with FountainWorks, was hired to speak to a wide range of stakeholders. The following stakeholders were interviewed: • Town of Fletcher• Town of Laurel Park• Henderson County Commissioners• Henderson County Staff• Town of Mills River• Village of Flat Rock• Henderson County Partnership for Economic Development (HCPED)• Agriculture Henderson County• Senator Tom Apodaca• Representative McGrady The information generated from these interviews is currently being used to “operate a great utility for our customers” (Mission Statement). These interviews led to the formation of the Water and Sewer Technical Advisory Committee. This Committee is made up of professional staff from Henderson County and local municipalities, Henderson County Partnership for Economic Development and Agriculture Henderson County. We have just recently added representatives from the Henderson County Board of Realtors and Henderson/Transylvania Homebuilders Association. The purpose of the Committee is to provide input regarding areas of concern and future water and sewer needs in Henderson County. Partnerships Henderson County Fire DepartmentIn 2016 Hendersonville Water and Sewer partnered with the Henderson County Fire Chiefs’ Association to create a hydraulic model of the entire water system. This model and its data have been provided to each fire department to give them up to date information regarding fire flow data and pressure data in their individual fire districts. The completion of the model has dramatically reduced the time each fire department must dedicate to flowing water at fire hydrants to determine fire flows required for maintaining ISO ratings. In addition, Hendersonville Water and Sewer representative met with Jay Alley, Gerton Fire Chief, following the Grand Highlands Clubhouse structure fire to discuss water supply on the top of Bearwallow Mountain. A similar meeting is scheduled for March 23 to discuss the recent structure fire in Kenmure with Chief Ray of the Blue Ridge Fire and Rescue Department. It is our intention to hold these meetings following major structure fires. Information gathered during the creation of the water system hydraulic model has been utilized to develop a Water System Master Plan. A draft copy is attached or can be found at the following link HVL Water Master Plan . The master plan was developed utilizing NCDOT TAZ (Transportation Area Zones) and input from Henderson County staff, HCPED and other stakeholders. A formal presentation for all stakeholders will be made on April 11, 2017 at 4:00pm. This master plan provides a blueprint for water system growth over the next twenty-three years. However, the City recognizes that the master plan is a living document and will change as circumstances change in Henderson County. A similar plan is being developed for sanitary sewer. We anticipate this plan being complete in early 2018. However, in the meantime, the City has requested that our consultant (Black & Veatch) work with Henderson County staff in providing sewer to Edneyville Elementary School. Specific Project Examples:Etowah Water System ImprovementsEastside Water Line Extension – Edneyville/DanaNorthside Water System Improvements – FletcherKenmure/Old Distillery Water Line Extension – Flat Rock Inside/Outside Rate DifferentialsTraditionally, the City of Hendersonville, like most municipal utility systems, has charged outside customers more than inside customers. The justification being that Hendersonville residents have historically taken the risk to build and maintain the system and the higher rates served as an incentive for customers to come into the corporate limits. Hendersonville’s rate differential has fluctuated through the years and prior to 2016 was approximately 166 percent. According to the UNC School of Government the median rate differential for all N.C. municipal utilities is 194 percent. Following our stakeholder interviews in 2015, the Hendersonville City Council established a policy that the rate differential should not exceed 150 percent. The current average rate differential is 148 percent. The City of Hendersonville will be performing a comprehensive rate study in 2017. One of the components of this study will be to evaluate how to create a uniform rate structure that can be implemented over a reasonable period of time. Water and Sewer Expansion PoliciesCommissioner Lapsley has stated that Hendersonville’s unwillingness to expand its water and sewer system has hurt Henderson County residents. The City will concede that prior to the early 2000’s there was little willingness to expand the water and sewer system. However, since Mud Creek Settlement Agreement in the early 2000’s, the water and sewer system has grown tremendously. From 2003 to 2008 most of the system’s growth, as with most utility systems was driven by development, and in our case, this development occurred outside of the corporate limits. However, since 2008 the City of Hendersonville has taken a much more proactive role in system expansion. The City has completed one larger water system expansion project (Eastside, Phase 1 – booster pump station and 1.5-MG water storage tank that has stabilized supply on the eastern side of Henderson County and are currently designing phase 2 and 3 of this project), one smaller water project that was in response to an area that was experiencing contaminated individual drinking water wells (20-wells exceeded the groundwater standard for deldrin and many others that were very close to this limit) in the Dana area (Academy Rd. water system project), extension of water along Schoolhouse Road in Mills River by City forces in response to the growth of agri-business in that area (Bold Rock and Tri-Hishtil) and three large sewer projects (Jackson Park, Atkinson and Wolfpen) that improved sewer service availability along the edges of Hendersonville and into the rural areas of Henderson County. City staff is also actively participating in Henderson County’s Technical Review Committee to assist with providing utilities into growing areas of Henderson County identified as part of the Urban Services Area and the Urban-Rural Transitional Area, as described in the County’s comprehensive plan. Etowah Sewer CompanyCommissioner Lapsley alleges that the customers of Etowah Sewer Company had no say so in the purchase of the system by the City of Hendersonville. First, it is the City’s understanding that Henderson County was offered the right to purchase the system and Henderson County refused. Secondly, the system is in dire need of repairs and the private company does not have the funds to make the repairs. Therefore, the existing customers and Henderson County are at risk if the system was not transferred to a larger utility entity. Etowah Sewer Company is a regulated utility and therefore the sale of the utility had to go through a public process with the North Carolina Utilities Commission (NCUC) which included notification of the impending sale to all customers on that system. The City and the Etowah Sewer Company received only two comments during the required public comment period. Due to the limited number of comments, the NCUC did not require a public hearing and approved the sale. Each Etowah Sewer Company customer received two notices of the sale and were given significant time to submit comments to the NCUC.Specific Project ExamplesAtkinson Elementary School Sewer Improvement (Joint Project with Henderson County to provide public sewer to elementary school with failing septic system)Jackson Park Interceptor Sewer (Large project which had benefit of removing a large pump station from Jackson Park and providing gravity sewer service availability to other areas of the park)Academy Road Water Extension (Public Health Emergency - Dana)Schoolhouse Road Water Extension (Agri-Business Economic Development – Mills River)Etowah Sewer Company Purchase 2000 Mud Creek Settlement AgreementThe 2000 Mud Creek Sewer District Purchase Agreement was executed prior to the hiring of current City and County management teams. The Advisory Council appointed with this agreement has not met since approximately 2003. It should also be noted that City staff has been in constant contact with Henderson County staff regarding water and sewer expansion plans over the last several years and no questions were ever raised regarding these projects. In fact, at least two of the City’s most recent sewer extension projects were discussed by the Board of Commissioners and directly benefited Henderson County (Jackson Park and Atkinson). The sewer system expansions have been well reported in the news media and no comments were received from Henderson County. To my knowledge, there has never been a prepared Annual Report and much of this information is available on our website, within the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (NCDEQ, formally known as the NC Department of Environment and Natural Resources or NCDENR) Annual Reports or upon request. Specifically, as it relates to the purchase of Etowah Sewer Company, John Connet, the City Manager, inquired on two different occasions if additional approvals were needed from Henderson County and he was told that no additional approvals were required at this time.Financial ManagementIn addition to the aforementioned rate study, the City is taking steps to ensure that the water and sewer system remains is in very good financial condition. Our reserves are strong and contrary to public perception, we are not using utility funds to subsidize the General Fund. The Water and Sewer Enterprise Fund does support its portion of internal services (fleet maintenance, legal, administration, engineering and financial management), but only on a proportionate share of expenditures basis. The City Council has instructed staff to reinvest our capital reserves into operations and system improvements. Specific Project Examples: Leak Detection Program has reduced water losses from 34% down to 20% over the last 1-1/2 years.Inflow and Infiltration Reduction Program has eliminated approximately 500,000-gallons per day of potable water entering the sewer collection system over the past 1-1/2 years. Customer Service / DisenfranchisementCommissioner Lapsley believes that water and sewer customers who live outside the city limits are “disenfranchised” or receive less customer service than City residents. It is the standard practice of the f Hendersonville City Council and staff to respond to any customer inquiry or concern regardless of the customer’s “inside” or “outside” status. The City Council is very responsive to any customer concern or issue. The Hendersonville Customer Service Team responds to over 800 calls a week and they never ask whether a customer resides inside or outside the city. All rate increases are look reviewed from an “entire customer base perspective”.Specific ExamplesHaywood Veterinary ClinicOld Distillery RoadAcademy Road Water Project In conclusion, the City of Hendersonville believes any action to force the City into a Water and Sewer Authority or under the oversight of the NCUC is overreaching and unjustified. The City is troubled by the fact that Commissioner Lapsley’s concerns have not been brought to us directly prior to this proposed action. Several of the topics were discussed during the stakeholder interviews, and as illustrated above, the City has been open to comments, suggestions and improvements by its customers and surrounding communities. If Hendersonville Water and Sewer customers had truly been negatively impacted over the years by the items Mr. Lapsley is now stating; surely the most logical step would have been to have honest and constructive discussions with City elected officials and staff at the time. Therefore, we believe this action is simply politically motivated and not in the best interest of the Hendersonville Water and Sewer customers. For more information regarding this response, please contact John Connet, City Manager, at (828) 233-3201   Read Story »

Henderson County Four Seasons Politics

LIGHTNING EDITORIAL: We still don't get the $20M training center

If the Board of Commissioners and Sheriff Charlie McDonald are now having to scramble to describe what the $20 million law enforcement center is not, they’ve got a problem.   Read Story »

Henderson County Four Seasons Politics

'Phew! What a firestorm,' McDonald says of fuss over protest remarks

Sheriff Charlie McDonald is not reaching for a broom to sweep away the controversy over his remarks about protests.   Read Story »

Henderson County Four Seasons Politics

With new sign, county officially trusts God

Henderson County now officially proclaims that it trusts God, thanks to new 10-inch black letters on its most prominent public building.   Read Story »

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